Guild Wars 2 Wiki Guide

Feature Pack: April 2014

"Prepare to experience Guild Wars 2 as never before! The April 2014 Feature Pack is the first release to focus exclusively on in-game features, and it's bringing in brand-new systems, improvements to existing features, balance updates, and more!"

- Official Guild Wars 2 website

April 2014 Feature Pack is a release focusing entirely on in-game features that launched on April 15, 2014.

Ferocity is being introduced as a non-percentage secondary attribute, and Critical Damage is being converted into a derived attribute.

On equipment, this will remove the discrepancies between item types that had different ratios of Critical Damage percentage to numerical attributes, since Ferocity will follow the standard numerical progression.

Critical Damage will now show the base 150% multiplier (previously hidden) and is increased by Ferocity at a rate of 1% per 15 Ferocity.

This change is estimated to reduce the damage output of a full berserker build by 10%.

Each level 80 character now has a total of 14 trait points, each equivalent to 5 trait points prior to the update.

Characters earn 1 trait point every 6 levels starting at level 30, and two trait points every 6 levels starting at level 66.

Refunding traits is free and can be done whenever out of combat and not in an SPvP match.

Each profession gets 5 new grandmaster traits, one for each trait line.

Trait tiers now unlock automatically: the adept tier at level 30, the master tier at level 60 and the grandmaster tier at level 80.

Individual major traits have to be unlocked first. This can be done by using a specific trait guide, which you can find in story dungeons, minidungeons, WvW, personal story, by killing bosses, discovering areas or buying from a profession trainer.

New players will have all major traits locked, existing characters will only have the traits new in this update locked.

Skins for items that are already account bound or soulbound on acquire are automatically unlocked when you acquire the item.

There is a new interface on the Hero panel's Equipment tab for applying skins. Skins can be applied to all slots at once in a preview mode before accepting the changes.

Applying a skin to a slot will cost a Transmutation Charge. This system replaces the current Transmutation system. Existing Transmutation Stones and Transmutation Crystals can be converted into Transmutation Charges at rates of 3 stones per charge and 1 crystal per charge respectively.

Town clothing is being converted into single-slot "Outfits" which can be toggled on/off similar to how helms, gloves, and back items currently work.

Applying skins to the outfit slot will not cost any Transmutation Charges.

Outfits will be persistent at all times - entering combat will no longer force you into your armor set.

Single-piece town clothing items will be converted into armor skins that are usable with any armor weight class.

Some basic clothing items that are no longer available for purchase will be converted into endless tonics.

When the feature pack is released, you will need to log in to each character on your account in order to unlock the skins that are currently bound to that character.

Any transmuted items will unlock the skin for both the item that provided its current appearance and the one that provided its current stats.

All accounts that log in between the launch of the feature pack on April 15 and midnight PST on April 16 will receive 5 free transmutation charges.

Dungeon reward tracks are on a rotating schedule, changing every two weeks. Characters that have completed the story mode of the respective dungeon have that reward track unlocked permanently. These are repeatable.

Region reward tracks are also repeatable and are unlocked sequentially as you complete the previous ones.

Balthazar Back Item Reward Track introduces Balthazar Carapace, a back piece obtainable only in PvP. This reward track is not repeatable.

After rank 80, you'll continue to gain the respective rewards just like you do in PvE and WvW after level 80.

Dailyachievements unified with Daily PvP as well as Monthly with Monthly PvP. April 2014's monthly achievements will be split into two at first and will each require only 2 achievements for completion. When this release launches, they will be merged into one that requires 4 achievements to complete.

Players will no longer be segregated into separate copies of a map based on their home world selection. Instead, all players will be placed into shared copies (instances) of the map, which will be instantiated as necessary to hold the current population of that map.

Overflow shards will no longer exist.

Maps are still region-based, i.e. North American servers are separate from European servers.

Upon entering a map, players will be placed in the copy of the map based on a set of heuristics which includes your party, guild, language, and home world. This will dramatically increase the chance that you will be placed in the same map as your party and guildmates, or other players who speak your language.

The initial roll-out will affect PvP lobbies and low population maps. This will allow the system to be tested on low population densities before being introduced to high population maps such as cities and popular spots for farming or events.

The roll-out of the megaserver system was completed on April 21st, 2014.

World bossdynamic events will start on a global daily schedule. This means that the same boss event will start up at the same time across all instances of the zone. A different boss event will start every 15 minutes. An initial schedule of events can be found on the news article.

Mega events: including the Triple Trouble, the Defeat the Karka Queen threatening the settlements, and Tequatl the Sunless. These events run on the hour in three different three-hour windows. The mega events are positioned at regional peak times.

As a result of the new system, all contestable waypoints will appear contested except for ones in your current map. When traveling to a different map, you will have to first travel to a incontestable waypoint and then travel to a contestable waypoint.

Contestable dungeon entrances will appear contested unless you are in the same map.

Statues of the gods in the Ruins of Orr will now be linked to the closest temple, rather than being linked to the temple of the same god.